


Lex Talionis

by noncorporealform



Series: I Could Be The Human Kind [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Connor, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hank's ex, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Post-Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Robot/Human Relationships, Rough Sex, Swearing, boy the andersons sure are potty-mouths, i want to warn but i make no promises, okay rough-er than last time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:16:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: Connor is ready to move in with Hank and see what this new life of co-habitation would be like. Hank’s old life comes bursting in, in the form of Hank’s ex-wife, Emily. Now that the androids are free and recognized as people, she wants to find the one she believes is responsible for her son’s death, to find some kind of justice. Connor tries to help her find it.





	Lex Talionis

**Author's Note:**

> i suspected this would be a series and now it is. this installment is a lot different thematically from (and shorter than) mammillaria, but it takes place not long after.
> 
> this one's about grief.

Living with someone would be a new experience. He had been alone in his apartment for only a handful of months when Hank told him enough was enough—rent was too high to be living all by himself when he spent most his time at Hank’s house anyway.

When he saw Hank and the warm smile on his face, hesitation drained and warmth took its place. He stood in the doorway, a box in his arms, and perched on top of that box was a small pet cactus. Connor’s mouth mirrored Hank’s, slowly rising, never quite falling back to neutral.

“Is that really it?” Hank asked.

“The TV is being delivered,” Connor said. “According to the tracking website, it will be here in two hours.”

“So, it’ll be here in five, got it.”

“No, it specifically says—”

Hank reached out and plucked the cactus from the box and held it up. He stared past it, directly into Connor’s eyes.

“I told you they’re easy to take care of,” Hank said.

He brought the little plant into the house and set it at the center of the kitchen table with care. At that point, for Connor, it really didn’t matter what else was in the box.

#

Hank had cleaned the right side of the closet for Connor’s clothes, the thing that Connor had hoarded the most. He brought his single box and set it on the floor.

“I need to get my clothes unpacked,” Connor said.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Good idea. We should probably start with _these_.”

He began to unbutton Connor’s shirt from the neck, working his way down. Connor smirked and eyed Hank, who was so occupied with his slow and gentle task that he refused to look Connor’s expression. They didn’t have to say anything as both their hands undressed Connor until he was standing naked in front of Hank, who wore only jeans, slippers, and a dark gray t-shirt advertising the band ‘Gravehammer.’

Hank wound an arm around Connor’s torso and pulled him in. He led them both back until Hank’s legs hit the edge of the bed. Hank sat down, holding Connor by the waist, drinking in the sight of him. Something passed over his eyes and his gaze wandered. That sense for unpredictability spiked in Connor’s consciousness. With giddy anticipation, he wondered what Hank was about to say.

“Can I see you?” Hank asked.

Hank’s voice was heavy with curiosity. For a moment, the words and the tone didn’t register to Connor’s ears. It took a few moments, and when it finally dawned on him, he recoiled. His arms went close to his sides, his hands finding firm purchase on Hank’s arms.

He had never asked for this. Not in any of the other scenarios. And there had been _many_ scenarios. Their sex life was becoming varied, and Connor liked everything that Hank had suggested—but this was different.

“Shit,” hank said. “I killed the mood, didn’t I?”

“No,” Connor tried. The lie made his voice do something awkward that he was upset he couldn’t control. “It’s not…”

“Connor. Someone asks for something you don’t wanna do, you just say ‘no.’ That’s all you gotta do.”

“I’m not saying ‘no,’ I just—”

“Yeah, you are. It’s okay, you didn’t hurt my feelings.”

“It just feels… _personal_ , somehow. I’m not ready for that.”

Hank leaned in and kissed Connor’s hip, once, reverently. Connor closed his eyes at the gentle touch, swaying slightly.

Connor’s entire body jolted when Hank squeezed his ass hard enough to lift Connor a bit off the ground. He gasped. Hard pleasure rolled through him. He fell forward and kissed Hank rough and long, feeling and hearing Hank breathe through his nose.

“This more your speed?” Hank asked.

Connor’s reply was muffled into Hank’s mouth.

Hank pulled his shirt over his head. Connor hurriedly helped him. He moved his hands over Hank’s hairy chest, tracing the breadth of his tattoo. He laid kisses on Hank’s face, wherever he wanted to. His cheeks, his nose, his lips. Connor was getting used to giving in to want, and it only seemed to delight Hank.

He climbed onto Hank’s lap, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, pressing his forehead to Hank’s.

It occurred to him—he could tell him.

This might be the time, in a moment of intimacy, when they were so close together. It could be right, just like this.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“Do whatever you want,” Connor whispered.

Hank grabbed Connor’s waist and pulled him close. He felt Hank’s erection underneath him and rolled his hips to grind against it. Hank hissed breath in through gritted teeth.

“You are so goddamn—,” Hank because but became too addled to finish his words.

Awkward moments passed of scooting up the bed, rummaging in drawers, and getting Hank out of his pants. It was all a flurry and by the time it was all done, Hank flipped Connor onto his belly. Hank grabbed his hips and pulled him back.

They had never done it like this before. They had always been facing each other. He’d been reticent to suggest it. He loved looking at Hank too much. But he’d been wondering about this.

Hank entered him and a noise came out of Connor, deep inside his chest. He didn’t even know he could make a noise from there. Something about the way he was positioned, down on his elbows, his rear up, angled him just right for a pleasure that was new and intense.

Hank grabbed onto his back with sturdy, strong hands. His palm moved up his spine and something _happened_. Sensation rolled through him like window panes being opened. His spine was more sensitive, somehow. Then, Hank pressed Connor’s shoulder down until Connor’s chest was pressed into the bed.

When Hank fucked him, the pleasure ripped through his body with the kind of ferocity reserved for wild places. He coveted the feeling of Hank’s hands steering and controlling him. Of all things, he felt _safe_. No one else could do this to him.

Connor came first, yelling into the mattress, artificial semen temporarily staining the mattress. Hank kept going and Connor rode the sensation of sex during the afterglow. Hank grunted and came, a sound that pressed into Connor’s consciousness, familiar and coveted.

They both collapsed, Connor on his stomach, Hank on his back. Hank caught his breath while Connor caught his faculties.

“I really like sex,” Connor moaned into the mattress.

“I noticed that about you,” Hank teased.

“I like it very much.”

He could say it. He knew he could. The possibility remained.

The words still hadn’t come out.

#

There was a knock at the door.

Both of them perked up. They had been lounging in bed for half an hour, time passing lazily as Connor laid prone, Hank running his hand’s over Connor’s body. For a second, it seemed like Hank was waiting to see if he were just hearing things. Then it came again, an insistent, unique rhythm.

“Ah, hell,” Hank said. “That’s gotta be the TV.”

He got up and slid into his clothes. Connor got up and began following suit.

“I got it,” Hank said. “Relax.”

He held Connor by the shoulder and he nodded, once. Hank laid a kiss on his brow. He left the bedroom, shutting the door behind him, but not all the way.

Connor collapsed onto his back. He was still alive with sensation, and he licked his lips to taste what was left of Hank’s kisses. Hank’s DNA burst into a series of ones and zeroes and there was a strange intimacy to knowing him like that, strand by strand, unspooled until everything was bare.

Another round of knocking was followed by the sound of the door being opened.

The voices were muffled. Connor stomped down on his own curiosity. There was no reason to eavesdrop, and he was too caught up in his own body.

Then the voices became louder. They were pitch, almost, and Connor realized that he was listening to an argument. That didn’t seem right.

He scanned the floor and found his jeans, but not his shoes or his shirt. It wouldn’t do to be naked from the waist up. He grabbed the closest article of clothing he could find and slipped it over his head.

He walked to the end of the hallway to see what was the matter.

Sumo was panting beside a woman who was sitting at the kitchen table. Her arms were folded, and so were Hank’s. He was standing, looming over her, but she was unbothered by him.

She was pretty, Connor thought.

“I’m not doing it, Emily,” Hank said. “You can’t come here out of the blue and—”

Hank stopped because the woman, Emily, wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking at Connor. Then Hank was looking at Connor. Hank shut his eyes in frustration.

“Shit,” Hank said.

“I heard raised voices,” Connor said.

It was like Emily had stopped breathing.

“Oh my god,” Emily said, blinking rapidly.

“Emily…,” Hank said.

“Oh my _god_.”

She got up, collecting a set of keys and a bag.

“Emily.”

“You got yourself a _sexbot_?” Emily snapped.

Connonr’s brows ticked together. She was clearly misinformed. “I was never a pleasure model.”

“An android?” Emily said. “A fucking android? You’re fucking a fucking android after _everything_? You sack of shit!”

“Hey! You think you can drop in out of the blue and scream at me? I don’t have to explain jack to you. You don’t like what I do with my life? There’s the door.”

“I’m out of here. I’m out of here!”

Emily left in a whirlwind, a massive gust of wind following when she opened and closed the door.

Connor looked down and saw in better light what he was wearing. It was Hank’s gray Detroit City Police Department hoodie. He smoothed the front of it.

“You never stay put,” Hank said.

“That was your ex-wife,” Connor said.

“Yeah.”

“This isn’t how you wanted her to meet me, was it?”

“No.”

#

Hank got the scotch out of the liquor cabinet, picking up a tumbler for the drink. He sat down with a purpose, despite it being early in the afternoon.

Connor walked up to the table. He picked up the tumbler and the bottle. He traced Hank’s exact path back to the cabinet and placed them back where they had come from.

He sat across from Hank. His displeased stare might have borne a hole through anybody else, but Connor stared back with immeasurable patience.

Hank ran his hand over his beard.

“It’s about Cole,” Hank said.

Connor’s face moved into curious concern. He tilted his head in an unasked question.

“She thinks I can find the android that—,” Hank said. “I don’t know what for. She says she wants to make him pay. That could mean she wants to sue, have him arrested, or…it could mean anything.”

“You don’t want to find him,” Connor guessed.

“It took me a long time to find peace with this. A long time. Don’t even know if I’m really there. But I know who killed my boy, and it wasn’t a machine. What would I even say? I don’t want anything from him.”

“But she does,” Connor said.

“She thinks she does. You don’t know Emily. She’s a fighter. She fights, even when she’s gonna lose. About nearly everything.”

Connor did a cross-reference of personality types, comparing Hank to what he’d described. Those personalities should have been highly compatible, though possibly intense.

Connor moved his chair closer to Hank.

“What do you need?” Connor asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Hank said. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Lieutenant—”

“ _Shit_.”

“What?”

“You went official. What is it?”

“I could do it. I could find the android.”

#

The RX300 had assisted in thousands of operations. After searching hospital records, Connor finally accessed the records from the night of Cole’s surgery. Before he scanned the details, he paused.

It was Cole.

The details would be grim and grisly. It would be in his head forever, and Hank would eventually know that Connor knew everything. Maybe even more than Hank himself. He had to wonder how Hank would look at him when he worked out just exactly how much Connor knew.

He settled into his seat and calmed his mind.

He scanned the file.

The RX300 hadn’t been equipped for solo surgery. There was no explanation in the file as to why the doctor didn’t appear, but Connor had all the context he needed. It was only the hospital leaving details out so as to evade repercussions.

The android shouldn’t have been in surgery alone, but it was the only thing the overworked, beleaguered staff could do. It was either operate immediately or lose Cole to blood loss anyway. They put the RX300 to work, expecting the surgeon to join him, eventually. He was only meant to stop the blood flow and prevent sepsis.

The surgeon never arrived.

The rest of the surgery would have required problem-solving beyond what the RX300 was capable of

He almost felt pity for the android, before remembering that it probably didn’t feel any sense of guilt or responsibility. It was doing a task and failed. That was all.

He moved on from hospital to law enforcement records.

The android was reported missing just before the last night of the revolution. It hadn’t been sent to be decommissioned. It had ran, either to preserve itself or join the revolution. The electronic trail had gone cold.

But Connor had its serial number, face, and general location. And it wasn’t as if he had lost his skill for completing missions.

#

Narrowing it’s location led him to a hospital in Ferndale. It wasn’t exactly a typical hospital, but it had been converted from one. Not all androids were comfortable being repaired by CyberLife, and had to go somewhere to be taken care of. There were many reasons for an android to need held. The revolution hadn’t healed all hearts, no matter how nobly Markus prevailed.

The hospital was crawling with RX300s. They were all unique personalities with free will, that he knew, but it was still daunting to look through a sea of handsome faces and to know he’d have to track a specific RX300 down.

“Can I help you?” asked a woman’s voice.

Connor had to take a moment. It was an RT600. Kamski had called her Chloe. He had pointed a gun directly at another RT600, feeling himself break down, unable to suppress the empathy that destabilized his software. She was the oldest model CyberLife had ever made, and very rare.

He wondered how old she was, and where she had come from.

“I’m looking for someone,” Connor said.

“A patient?” she asked.

“He would be on the staff.”

She searched him up and down. He recognized when he was being scanned. Or maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe she just realized where she knew him from.

“You’re Connor,” she said.

“It’s very important that I find this android,” Connor said, trying to stay on track.

“May I ask why?”

“I have some questions for him regarding a surgery that he would have performed before the awakening.”

“Do you know how much care we take to keep our staff safe?”

“I don’t mean him any harm. I came alone.”

“But you were sent by humans.”

Connor stared deep into her eyes, trying to impress the importance of the moment.“What I report back is at my discretion. Ultimately, it will be the RX300’s decision whether or not to meet with the humans.”

She narrowed her eyes. It was clear that she found him curious. Her eyes darted back and forth and her expression was uncanny. She was very pretty. When she locked eyes with him at last, something in him relaxed.

She held out her hand. He touched her fingertips with his and he transferred the serial number to her.

“Come with me,” she said.

#

The next part would be challenging, but he ran all the scenarios necessary to prepare for the moment.

The door opened.

“Hi. My name is Con—”

The door slammed in his face.

He recoiled, but he had expected something like this. He rapped his knuckles on the door again, adjusting his jacket.

“Fuck off, you holographic prick.”

“Hank doesn’t know I’m here.”

He registered no movement from inside. Emily was standing completely still.

Three footsteps to the door.

The hate in her eyes was incredible, but the intelligence was even greater. She didn’t know why he was here, but she knew enough to understand that Connor had something for her, and she badly wanted to know what it was.

She let him into the house. It was a single-story two-bedroom ranch made of brick, architecturally similar to the other houses in the neighborhood. He stood in the center of her neat, brightly colored living room and waited for social cues as to where he should sit or stand.

“You’re way too funny-looking to be Hank’s type,” Emily said.

“It’s interesting you should say that. Hank’s said the same thing about my appearance. That wasn’t what my designers intended.”

“No, they probably intended for you to be fuckable.”

Targeting him personally was part of an offensive that Connor had to adjust to. There would be no point in being hostile back. That would only lead to escalation.

“I’m sorry that my presence makes you feel you need to resort to personal attacks,” Connor said.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Emily said, getting to the point.

“I know what you spoke about with Hank the day I interrupted your argument.”

“You have _no right_ to pry into my business.”

“I didn’t pry. Hank told me. Then I took initiative. I only wanted to help.”

“Help? What kind of help?”

“I tracked down the RX300 who operated on your son. I know where he is. I spoke to him.”

For a moment, Connor thought her breathing was terminating altogether.

“You did _what_?”

“I was designed to assist law enforcement. It wasn’t hard to use my skills to access information for a more personal reason. I spoke to the RX300. I told him that I didn’t know what exactly you wanted from him, but he agreed to terms.”

“Terms?”

“He’ll speak to you, or Hank, or both of you. The only stipulation is that he be given a chance to speak, uninterrupted, after you’ve introduced each other.”

Emily’s mouth was hanging open and she blinked rapidly.

She moved back and sat in a chair. Ignoring him, she put her face in her hands. Connor stood, politely still, his hands folded in front of him. She ran her hand over her face. Unable to look at him, she stared at the far wall.

“You really found him,” Emily said.

“I can take you to him,” Connor said. “You and Hank.”

She turned and looked at him, eyes blazing with light. “Why? Why did you do this?”

Connor searched for the words. He went to adjust his tie, but found he wasn’t wearing one, so he smoothed out his shirt instead. He opened his mouth to speak—

“I—,” Connor began.

“Jesus Christ,” Emily said.

Connor’s mouth hung open. They held each other’s gazes and she looked paler, somehow, and stunned.

“I was only going to say that I felt it was the right thing to do.”

“You’re in love with him. Jesus. I knew you guys started having emotions and shit, but this is just…”

Connor blinked, rapidly, as if receiving a particularly heavy data-file. Words seemed to have abandoned him, his processing grinding to a halt. It was like she could read him, a clairvoyant capable of opening his chest up like a wardrobe and grabbing whatever she wanted from inside.

“I promise that’s not why I’m here,” Connor said.

“What did you say your name was again?” Emily asked.

“Connor.”

“Sit down, Connor.”

Connor sat across from her, a long living room table separating them. He lowered himself into the chair slowly. He didn’t take his eyes off Emily, as if she could pounce at any moment.

“This is my boy we’re talking about,” Emily said. “My boy. You androids, you got your ‘reproductive rights’ and will do whatever you want with them, but you don’t know what it’s like to have children. And you certainly don’t know what it’s like to be a parent who’s lost a child. When you use that big computer you call a brain to look up a definition, is there a word for a parent who’s lost a child?”

Connor shook his head ‘no.’

“There are days when, for just a few minutes, I forget that he’s gone and those days are the cruelest because then _I remember_. It’s true for me. It’s true for Hank. But you don’t know that. You’re a piece of plastic.”

Connor looked at his hands. They had been folded politely, but he found that they were curled in and he was picking at his nails. He had never done that before.

“I know that it’s unlikely we’ll ever be… _friendly_ ,” Connor said. “But I came here to offer you something, and it’s not rescinded just because you don’t like me. I don’t have to know first-hand what you’re going through to want to help. You don’t owe me anything, not even your time. I’m going to leave now. I’m going to go home, and I’m going to tell Hank the same thing I told you: that the RX300 is willing to talk. I want you to know that I don’t harbor any ill will toward you. I’ll be there if you want to go through with this.”

“You need to fuck off before I put a kitchen knife through your eye.”

Connor stood, adjusted his jacket, and walked out of the house.

#

Connor sat on the couch, tucked in a corner, patiently waiting while Hank sat at the kitchen table, his hands folded in front of him. Connor was determined not to interfere except in the case where alcohol might be introduced. Whatever Hank was feeling, Connor would simply step back and wait for Hank to be ready.

If he was mad, Connor would deal with that, too.

“I bet it’s scared,” Hank said.

Connor tilted his head. He studied Hank from across the room. “Why do you say that?”

“I would be. It probably feels like its reckoning’s coming.”

“Is that your intention, Hank? To take revenge?”

Hank shook his head, his face twitching. “Hell, I’m way past revenge. What the hell would I even do? Just thinking about it makes me tired.”

“Hank.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

Hank gazed at him from across the room. His expression was soft with an edge of numbness.

“I know why you did it.”

 _You_ _’re in love with him. Jesus._

No. Not yet. He couldn’t know yet. And it wasn’t even why he was doing this.

“Hmm?” Connor tried.

“I think there’s some little plug-in in your head that makes it so that every problem is an itch you have to scratch. You’ve never done what I say.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hank waved his hand. “Don’t be. I like you the way you are, Connor. Fuck-ups and all.”

Connor stiffened and he wondered what was stirring in him. It might have been pride, or it might have been another aspect of the unspoken _thing_ he was still beginning to understand.

Hank got up and picked up his phone, unlocking it and dialing a number.

Connor listened to the frequency and knew he was calling Emily.

#

They met Emily at the  hospital. From her body posture, she was uncomfortable standing around with so many androids milling about. At the sight of Hank she seemed to lift, only to deflate at the sight of Connor staying in step next to him.

“Does it have to be here?” Emily asked.

“ _He_ is the one who did this for us,” Hank said.

“He didn’t do it for me.”

“Yeah. He did.”

Emily seemed knocked back by that, but she found her footing again. Connor noted that she was pointedly no longer looking at Connor.

#

The waiting room was left over from when it was a human hospital. It was abandoned, the chairs forgotten after-effects of uses they no longer served.

“This is stupid,” Emily said. “Let’s go, it’s not going to show—”

The door opened.

The RX300 entered. The fear and unease was plain on his face. He was blond, traditionally handsome, but with a slimmer face that gave him just enough character to be unique.

He held himself still. The whole room was frozen in time, no sound or breeze allowed to interrupt the quiet.

The RX300 spoke first.

“I imagine you’ve been thinking about what to say to me for a long time.”

Some of the tension in the room deflated. Even Emily wasn’t brewing anymore, her rage not gone, but more of a simmer.

“I know your names,” he said. “I’m Robert. That’s probably easier to remember than a series of letters and numbers.”

“Robert,” Hank echoed with a nod. His voice was deep and gruff and Connor didn’t know what to make of that.

“Whatever you want to say,” Robert continued. “Just know you don’t have to hold back. You’ve been through something I couldn’t imagine. So—say it. You deserve to be able to say it.”

Hank was quiet. He was waiting for her.

“Do you even remember him?” Emily asked through teeth as tight as a tiger’s.

“His name was Cole. I remember him, just like I remember the others. Everybody who died because I didn’t have…creativity.”

“Creativity?” Hank asked, as if insulted.

“I was a machine. They had only given me the ability to assist and to do basic procedures. Complications require a surgeon with the ability to problem-solve. Before Markus woke me up, I was just doing the tasks I was capable of doing. Anything outside my programming was simply impossible.

“I waited. I waited and waited for the surgeon to come. That time and all the others. It wasn’t until I woke up that I realized…”

Robert covered his mouth. Something was welling up in him and his eyes were becoming wet with artificial saline.

Emily stepped forward. She stared into Robert’s face with all the bravery of a knight standing against a dragon. Except there was no serpent in the room. Just an android that was getting smaller by the moment.

Emily sobbed, once, then covered her mouth. She regained her composure immediately.

“I’m so sorry,” Robert said. “I would do anything, _anything_ , to have been awake that night. I know how I could have saved him. I think about how it’s unfair, and cruel. Every person I lost, every day, they’re in my head. Please, do what you think is right. Do what you have to do. I lost him, but not the way you did. You deserve that much.”

Emily retreated back to Hank, sitting in one of the chairs. Her face was in her hands and Hank sat next to her. He had his hands on her shoulders.

Connor leaned in and caught Hank’s eyeline. Hank looked up at him. Connor nodded, once, all he needed to do.

The next moments would be for them. Connor had brought them all together, but what came next was something he couldn’t be a part of. It wasn’t _for_ him.

Connor slipped out of the door. He sat down on the floor, knees up to his chest, just beside the door. And he waited.

#

They sat in the car for a long while, just Connor and Hank. Emily had insisted on taking a taxi back. She’d needed room to think, she’d insisted. Connor had that feeling of intrusion again, even though it was only the two of them. Finally, in the uncanny silence of the parking garage, Hank spoke.

“Lex talionis,” he said.

Connor let the phrase rattle around in his mind. “From the Latin. Whereby a punishment is proportional to the offense committed.”

“She’s not going to press charges.”

The meaning sunk into Connor and he nodded.

#

“You know what’s fucking miraculous?” Hank said. “I don’t want a drink.”

Hank dropped everything in his pockets into the bowls by the door—keys, wallet, and validated parking receipts. Hank stood in his own living room, as if lost and confounded by his surroundings.

“I understand if you’re upset—,” Connor said.

“Why did you do it?” Hank asked. “You didn’t have to. You get nothing from this. It was a risk. I could have been pissed at you. I almost _was_ pissed at you.”

Connor waited to come up with a better answer, but none came. So he was honest. “Because I like her,” he confessed.

Hank put his hands on his hips and stared at Connor earnestly. Connor couldn’t make out his expression. Hank’s were often complicated, unpredictable. Normally Connor liked that about him—loved it, even—but at the moment the stress of not knowing was intense enough to shut his thinking down.

“Do you know how much I love you, kid?” Hank said.

It was a jolt, like suddenly being plugged in. Connor’s eyes widened and his mouth parted.

He’d said it first.

“Hank—”

“You didn’t have to do this. You did. And I know it wasn’t for me. You were just doing what you thought was right and I fucking love you for it.”

Hank reached out and grabbed Connor by the lapel of his jacket and pulled him into an embrace. Connor was too stunned to hug back at first, his hands out to his sides, useless and dangling. Then, his arms wound around Hank’s back to cling at his jacket. He pressed his face into Hank’s chest and found solace in the darkness of closing his eyes and feeling.

“Tell me,” Hank said. “Just tell me. Only if you mean it.”

Connor pressed his face against the side of Hank’s neck.

“I do. I love you, Hank.”

#

Hank woke up early in the morning. It wasn’t often that he did this, but his eyes rolled open and he made a lazy moan. Connor watched Hank get up in all his messy humanity, rubbing his eyes, hemming, and groaning.

Hank saw him watching and smiled.

They both rolled over onto their sides. They stared at each other with dawning remembrance of what they’d shared. Connor reached up and brushed Hank’s hair out of his eyes.

There was one barrier, one last thing that Connor wanted to give Hank, the last piece of discomfort that was unfair to both of them.

Connor pressed his fingers to the side of Hank’s face, and, from the fingers on down, he took off his skin. For the first time he laid in front of the man he loved in complete and total truth.

Hank leaned in and kissed him, lapping inside Connor’s mouth, pressing against white lips, cupping Connor’s neck with all it’s ports and divisions.

“Is this strange?” Connor asked. “Seeing me like this?”

Hank ran his hand over Connor’s smooth cheek. “You’ve always been a little weird.”

“Oh.”

“Connor, it’s okay. I like that about you. What the hell would I do with normal, anyway?”

Connor pressed his cheek into Hank’s hand and closed his eyes. The texture of Hank’s skin was so different than his own. There were microscopic, rough details to him, while Connor was so smooth that he couldn’t develop such dermal abrasions.

“What do I feel like?” Connor asked.

“Like nothing else,” Hank said.

“But if you had to describe it…”

“Connor, I’m not a poet. I don’t have the right words. That’s not the point, anyway.”

“What is the point?”

“Connor. You’re naked.”

The miraculous, strange fact was that Hank hadn’t ran away, nor had something risen in him like a fetish at the sight of him. Hank had wanted to know Connor completely, to really see him. Connor—naked, seen, and vulnerable—could break under the lightest touch. It was exactly how he thought he’d feel, if he showed himself like this. He didn’t understand why he’d been so scared. Being laid bare was the most wonderful thing.


End file.
